


sword and shield

by AnnaofAza



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Sibling Love, Spoilers for Season Two, and Viren is still trying to conquer the world and get his revenge, but Claudia is not using dark magic and Soren is Ezran's self-appointed bodyguard, sometime in the distant future, where Ezran is on the throne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-10-30 19:13:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17834498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: “Game plan,” Soren says, “stop Dad from getting to his big book of evil magic spells. Buy Rayla and Callum and Ezran enough time to escape from assassination--I see you, irony. Oh, and save the world. The usual.”





	sword and shield

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Scandalmuss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scandalmuss/gifts).



> This will probably be jossed anyway, but I'd love to see Claudia and Soren confront their father and be all "Dad, we love you, but what the fuck" and for Soren to confront his inner demons.

The halls are dark, torches smothered, and the stones beneath her boots make their footsteps echo through the emptiness. Claudia guides them, one palm tracing against the wall, tiny pebbles and dust and soot clinging to her fingertips. A tiny flame flickers in her other palm, cupped carefully to illuminate their path, nothing more. 

Beside her, Soren's armor clinks softly, despite his own careful steps. Shield and sword are in each fist, his eyes darting every so often among the walls, as if expecting something to leap out of them, even though they're familiar with the castle, knowing every crevice, every creaky stair, every locked door, every secret. They'd grown up in these walls, with marathons of hide-and-seek and escaping from boring cotillions or state dinners. Every staircase railing has been slid down, every curtain hidden behind (or torn at least once), and every mirror rewarded with a wink and a smirk from Soren. 

But this is no longer their home. This is place of fear, not safety, and that's why Ezran, Callum, and Rayla are as far away from this place as possible. She knows that Rayla and Callum are more than capable of taking care of each other, with what they survived in Xadia, and knows that even though Ezran is one of the youngest kinds she's ever heard of, he's survived more than anyone his age. Queen Aanya will offer them safe passage, in the meantime. 

Callum had begged to go with her, but Claudia had shaken her head. "It's something Soren and I need to do. Our paths are different." 

Her hand passes over another stone, but this time, it's warm, like it's been sitting out in the sun.

Or activated with magic. 

"Here," she whispers. 

Her brother looks at the perfectly-innocuous wall, squinting in the dim light. "Really?" 

Claudia nods. "Really. I'm sure of this. Stand back, just in case." 

Soren doesn't like it, but he listens, raising his shield, as Claudia concentrates, focusing on the stone beneath her hand. 

It's as if the wall yawns--and Soren gapes, jaw nearly on the floor, when the stones part beneath her touch. "All right," he says, "points for a cool hiding place." 

"Cool," Claudia echoes, then looks back at him. "Ready?" 

And they enter together, in a room that they've never seen before, but almost like the chamber underneath the castle, with chains and herbs hanging from the ceiling, herbs and animal parts sitting in glass jars, bookshelves lining the walls, a table with scrolls and a golden cup and several items Claudia doesn't recognize but knows in the pit of her stomach that they're no ordinary things for magic. 

Their dad looks at them coldly, unsurprised, the tome already in his hands. The full-length mirror in front of him, no longer covered with a dusty cloth, is strangely blank--no images, no reflections at all. “You two.”

“Dad,” Soren says, stepping towards him, but his fingers are curled tightly around his sword hilt. “Dad, don’t do what you’re going to do. Destroying Xadia won’t bring anything back. Hurting Ezran won’t. No one will accept you as king, especially not n--”

Their father shakes his head scornfully. “You don’t understand the danger. We are still weak--and it’s time to be strong.”

“Not like this,” Claudia says.

“You lost the princes. You lost the egg--the dragon prince. I can’t count on you.” He glares at them, and Claudia feels the familiar twinge of doubt, of wanting to please her dad.

 _Dad’s smart. He must have a good reason,_ Soren had said weakly, resigned to a bedridden life. He’s lived through so much, done so many things--didn’t that count for something?

“I know I lost both,” Claudia says. “But please--Dad,” she has to make him _see_ , “Soren was going to die!”

“And what did I tell you?” he snarls. He doesn’t look like the man who guided her hand through her first spell, who shot colorful sparks in the air for her birthdays, who told her that she’d one day surpass him in magic. He looks inhuman, layers peeling off him like an onion, revealing rotting and shadowy flickers Claudia doesn’t recognize. “I told you that only the egg matters!”

Beside her, Soren flinches.

 _Dad’s gone,_ she thinks, pit sinking in her stomach, opening wide in her chest. _Whatever this is, this isn’t Dad. I should have known._

She doesn’t dare close her eyes, not even to gain a second’s worth of concentration. This is a man she can never turn her back on again. Instead, Claudia focuses on the energy around her, just like Callum had taught her, and breathes.

This isn’t the magic she’s used to--instantaneous and easy and sharp as a dagger--but it’s better, she knows. The white streak in her hair reminds her every day of the effect dark magic can have.

 _If you keep doing it, it’ll consume you,_ Callum had warned her, holding out both his hands. Beside him, Rayla had stood with her two swords gripped in her fists, untrusting and unflinching. _I don’t want you to end up like that. Like your dad._

But it also reminds her of Soren. That no matter what, she’d protect her brother, just as he protects her. They had huddled together underneath the castle, hidden among the pots and potions and dangling chains, after their mother had left.

Dad said she didn’t want them. They both believed it, at the time, and Claudia still wonders if Soren still does.

And as they grew older, she learned magic and he learned swordfighting and they should have grown further and further apart, but they didn’t.

All she has to do now is look at Soren, and in one glance, they know what to do.

They both charge, Viren dropping the book, with Claudia striking first, Soren covering her, and the air around them crackles with energy, an energy that’s stifling in such a small space. It feels hot, so hot, like being shoved into a furnace, but it also makes Claudia feel _alive,_ every hair on her body standing at attention and prickles running up and down her arms.

Magic clashes against magic, sword against magic. Soren weaves in and out of strikes, sword flashing in the dimly-lit darkness, hair falling into his eyes. Claudia casts lightning after lightning strike, fire blast after fire blast, sweat dripping down her back and forehead. Heat, she’d realized, is everywhere, in every living and dead thing, in the air that touched her skin, in the grass that her boots crunched through. Fire suits her--it can destroy, but it can heal--

Viren seems to absorb every blow, but the effort’s tiring him. She’s seen her father exhausted after spells, eyes flickering and limbs weary, even once sitting down--yet this is different. She’s _winning._

Inside, she feels triumph-- _I am destined to be greater--_ warring with flickers of reluctance, of affection, of pleading- _-Dad, Dad, Dad_ \--

“You don’t have to do this, Claudia!” Viren shouts, as if hearing her thoughts. “You can join me! Take back our kingdom, our lands! You can rule--be better than Harrow ever was, better than--”

“ _Ezran_ is the king!” Soren snarls back, and Claudia is so proud, proud as the day he’d knelt before Ezran in the throne room, vowed protection that was separate from their father’s manipulations.

“And what’s that say about you?” Viren asks, turning his attention to him at last. “I chose you to do this task, the one I knew your sister couldn’t do. I _trusted_ you. And you still failed. You’re worthless.”

There’s a falter, a flicker of doubt, of hurt in her brother’s eyes, but a steeliness, as if he’s seeing their father for the first time. “I was never going to be good enough for you, was I?” he asks, sword still raised high in the air. “If I had succeeded, there would have been another task. And another. To prove myself to _you_.”

The last part is tinged with bitterness, hurt--but Viren only laughs, cold and cruel. 

“No,” he says, “you were never good enough.” And with that, his hand flicks--

Soren crashes to the ground, limbs limp like a puppet’s strings, head cracking sharply on the ground. Claudia screams, but Soren’s eyes are still open, moving frantically as her father rushes for the door, robes flapping behind him.

“Claudia! I can’t...” Soren gasps, teeth clenched in pain. “Get him!”

She knows it’s the right thing to do, the most pragmatic. Without stopping her father, the world would be thrown into more chaos, Callum and Ezran would never be safe, the war will never end.

But Claudia does what she’s always done: fall beside her brother, cradling his head in her hands.

“Soren,” she whispers, cold sinking into her knees. “Soren..." 

"He reversed what you did," Soren says weakly. "I feel okay. What I can feel anyway. Claudia,  _go._ " 

It's the hardest decision she's made, but Claudia steps away, memorizing her brother's face. The hair that has never followed regulations. The scar cutting his eyebrow in two, the one Soren wanted to make himself look cool. The hands that can swing a sword and hold a shield, the same ones that helped her bandage a scrape on her knee when they were both kids, still confident in the world their dad built around them. 

"Save the world, little sis," her brother says, determination flashing in the eyes they share. "I know you can do it." 

And with one more glance back, Claudia runs. 

**Author's Note:**

> Soren is completely fine; he lives to a ripe old age, doing one-armed push-ups and being the lead knight of Ezran's Kingsguard-esque protection army.


End file.
